For International Women’s Day, we’d like to recognise five of the women whose vision and skill have shaped the city we love best. If you’re a fan of iconic architecture, join us in raising a glass to these five incredible architects:
For the global stage
We have to start with Zaha Hadid, a true rock star in the architectural community. She was dubbed Queen of the Curve due to the striking fluidity of her designs. Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, built for 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, outfitted Stratford with state-of-the-art facilities that transformed the area. The most striking building of all is Zaha Hadid’s extraordinary London Aquatics Centre, inspired by moving water, which flows through the park, surrounded by riverside landscapes. 628 panels of glass across the side of the building flood these municipal pools with natural light.
Room with a view
Julia Barfield co-founded an award-winning architectural firm, Marks Barfield Architects. Their 1993 design did not win the contest for a landmark to commemorate the new millennium it was designed around, so why does it make the list? They went ahead with the plan to build a Ferris wheel on the Thames anyway. And that's how we got the London Eye. Did you know its 32 capsules represent the 32 boroughs of London?
Another fan favourite Marks Barfield design is the Treetop Walkway through Kew Gardens, where you can enjoy incredible canopy views of the most biodiverse place on the planet.
Heart of the community
Bethnal Green has a devoted local community and plenty to do, from historic boxing arenas to fresh flower arranging. Its town hall, which had fallen into disrepair, has found a new calling in this community as a gorgeous hotel. It was transformed by architecture firm RARE, led by director Nathalie Rozencwajg, and it won awards for its intuitive blend of past and present, restoring incredible original features and reimagining the space in a spectacular way.
Photo: Town Hall Hotel by Gordon Joly | CC BY-SA | Flickr
By the book
Do yourself a favour and take a wander through The British Library. Try to find a specific and you’ll see just how remarkable the design of this Grade I listed building truly is. MJ Long, joint architect of the British Library with her husband Sir Colin St John Wilson, carefully designed the layout down to every detail so it would work like clockwork. With the goal that it should take 20 minutes at most for a book in the basement stacks to be delivered to the reading room, she made the storage, organisation and operation of the British Library’s immense collection possible.
Photo: The British Library by JamesZ_Flickr | CC BY | Flickr
Reaching new heights
So the final woman we'd like to recognise isn’t actually an architect, but when we talk icons of the London skyline shaped by incredible women, we have to talk about Roma Agrawal. This brilliant structural engineer spent six years designing the foundation and the iconic spire of the Shard. One of the most impressive aspects of her design for the spire, other than its impact on the London skyline, is that it needed to be able to be constructed and tested off-site, which hadn’t been done on a building at this scale before.
Want to learn more about London architecture? Read:
